Sinn Féin should stick a cork in it over pensions

IN VINO veritas, they say – in wine there’s truth – and sometimes there can also be sour grapes, too – as Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams found out yesterday. Mr Adams found himself withering on the vine when he attacked Taoiseach Leo Varadkar over the Government’s handling of an unjust pensions anomaly, which has shamefully left thousands of women severely out of pocket, as highlighted in recent weeks.

The Government is rightly on the ropes for not addressing the issue described as “bonkers” by Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe. Sinn Féin also attacked Fianna Fáil for not doing more to force the Government to act.

But while Mr Adams’s party was the first to draw attention to this injustice, it preferred to stay out of Government when it had an opportunity to do something about it. Mr Adams came a cropper when he said older people were losing out on €30 every week.

However, he drew some very strange looks when he went on to infer that members of the Cabinet spend €30 on bottles of wine, and therefore could not appreciate how much €30 could mean to someone less well off. Mr Varadkar pounced on Mr Adams for using first-class flights in the past “when he can get somebody to pay for them”, adding: “It’s some bottle of wine that costs €30.”

None of this will be of any comfort to the men and women cheated of their pensions. But it did remind us that empty vessels can make too much noise, and sometimes, it is wise to stick a cork in it.